By Russ Bynum | Related Press
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Authorities stated not less than seven individuals have been killed Saturday when a part of a ferry dock collapsed on Georgia’s Sapelo Island, the place crowds had gathered for a fall celebration by the island’s tiny Gullah-Geechee group of Black slave descendants.
A number of individuals have been taken to hospitals, and crews from the U.S. Coast Guard, the McIntosh County Hearth Division, the Georgia Division of Pure Sources and others have been looking out the water, in line with Pure Sources spokesperson Tyler Jones. The company operates the dock and ferry boats that transport individuals between the island and the mainland.
Jones stated a gangway on the dock collapsed, sending individuals plunging into the water.
“There have been seven fatalities confirmed,” Jones stated. “There have been a number of individuals transported to space hospitals, and we’re persevering with to go looking the water for people.”
Helicopters and boats with side-scanning sonar have been used within the search, in line with a Division of Pure Sources assertion. The reason for the collapse is being investigated.
Among the many useless was a chaplain for the state company, Jones stated.
He stated there have been not less than 20 individuals on the gangway when it collapsed. The gangway linked an outer dock the place individuals board the ferry to a different dock onshore.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp stated he and his household have been “heartbroken by at the moment’s tragedy on Sapelo Island.”
“As state and native first responders proceed to work this lively scene, we ask that every one Georgians be a part of us in praying for these misplaced, for these nonetheless in hurt’s means, and for his or her households,” Kemp stated on the social platform X.
Sapelo Island is about 60 miles (97 kilometers) south of Savannah, reachable from the mainland by boat.
The lethal collapse occurred as island residents, relations and vacationers gathered for Cultural Day, an annual fall occasion spotlighting the island’s tiny group of Hogg Hummock, residence to a couple dozen Black residents. The group of dust roads and modest houses was based after the Civil Battle by former slaves from the cotton plantation of Thomas Spalding.
Hogg Hummock’s slave descendants are extraordinarily shut, having been “bonded by household, bonded by historical past and bonded by wrestle,” stated Roger Lotson, the one Black member of the McIntosh County Board of Commissioners. His district contains Sapelo Island.
“Everyone seems to be household, and everybody is aware of one another,” Lotson stated. “In any tragedy, particularly like this, they’re all one. They’re all united. All of them really feel the identical ache and the identical damage.”
Small communities descended from enslaved island populations within the South — often called Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia — are scattered alongside the coast from North Carolina to Florida. Students say their separation from the mainland brought on residents to retain a lot of their African heritage, from their distinctive dialect to expertise and crafts similar to cast-net fishing and weaving baskets.
In 1996, Hogg Hummock, also called Hog Hammock, was positioned on the Nationwide Register of Historic Locations, the official checklist of america’ treasured historic websites.
However the group’s inhabitants has been shrinking for many years, and a few households have bought their land to outsiders who constructed trip houses.
Tax will increase and zoning modifications by the native authorities in McIntosh County have been met by protests and lawsuits by Hogg Hummock residents and landowners. They’ve been battling for the previous yr to undo zoning modifications authorized by county commissioners in September 2023 that doubled the scale of houses allowed in Hogg Hummock.
Residents say they concern bigger houses will result in tax will increase that would power them to promote land their households have held for generations.